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So, horseshow number two for the year was the Lake Washington Saddle Club schooling Jumper show at Bridle Trails.

I hauled Kip and Miley, a grey Thoroughbred mare. Appearently, Kip and Miley fell in love in the trailer, because they both really had a fit when they weren’t next to each other.

Besides that, though, Kip was excellent. He didn’t take very much warm up; he knew what his job was from our first class. Unfortunately, I was a little foggy on what my job was — which is knowing the course. The last two jumps on the course was the line by the stands, not the bending line. So we got an “E” for that round. It was too bad, too, because it was a beautiful round.

The divisions were gigantic, with 50+ riders in each one. At 2 minutes a round, that makes for a long wait between rounds. I had planned on riding Intro jumpers (2′) Beginning Jumpers (2’3) and Low Jumpers (2’6″). That would have been 5 rides. But after Begining jumpers, there were 57 riders for Low jumpers, and I was not waiting around for that.

At the end of the day, I got a 7th in Beginning jumpers course A and First (yay!) for Beginning jumpers course B. I knew the optimum time for course “b” was pretty quick at 57 seconds, and I got it on the nose! There was a turn from fence two to three, that I knew we’d have to do a roll back on the left lead, instead of circling to the right, which is what most people were doing. And it worked! No one from my barn saw my round, though — they had all gone to eat lunch. I can’t blame them, though. The waiting around was brutal.

It was another great day with Kip. I just have to know that he is gonna be pretty amped up when we are away from home — especially when I am on the ground. But he knows his job and becomes all business when we are in the ring. It is amazing.

Next I am hoping to go to the Baywood Pony Club One-Day-Event.

Kip and I celebrated Easter by going to a horse show.

I can’t get over how great he was.

On the Wednesday before, my trainer, Anne, told me that I’d need to pull one of the trailers to the show on Sunday, would that be a problem? I said it’d be no problem at all, but of course that just ramped up my anxiety. But I just prepared as much as I could, by looking up the location on Google maps, writing out the directions, AND programing my GPS.

The first class was at 8am, so we needed to leave the barn by 6. We left a little after that, but arrived in plenty of time to tack up and go to the arena to get settled in.

Since it was a schooling show, we were allowed in the arena before the first class, and all the horses were a little spooky. Kip was snorty, but I felt good, and he never felt scared, just interested. I stayed relaxed and we warmed up.

Our first class was just ground poles and we got soundly beaten by two six-year olds, among others. We got a Fifth. But going around the arena, I could feel Kip’s brain click and after that, he was as calm and relaxed as he is at home.

Between classes, while the other horses were calling for their barn mates, shying, rearing and needing to be cantered in endless circles, Kip and I stood by the ring Steward, because Kip likes the person in charge. He’d edge his way to the Steward and before you knew it, Kip’d have his nose in the crook of the Steward’s arm, or would be snuffling his hat. He became a staff favorite and got some extra cookies for his trouble.

When It was our turn, we’d walk in on a long rein, canter our circle, jump the jumps, acknowledge the judge and walk out on a long rein.

We were in these six classes:
Working Hunter – Ground Poles – 5th place
Working Hunter – Cross Rails – 2nd place
Equitation Over Fences 18” Trot or Canter – 2nd place
Working Hunter Fences 18“ Trot or Canter – 2nd place
Working Hunter 2’ – first place
Equitation Over Fences 2’- first place

The one that is most shocking is the first in Equitation. Really.

I actually had signed up for additional classes, but he was starting to feel tired, so we stopped. He was not tired, though. He just had to pee. After we got back to the trailer, he finally decided it was okay. I need to figure this out, because his needing to go was an issue at our Disastrous Day that Will Never Be Mentioned Again, too.

I guess nobody is perfect, after all.

These are the main podcasts on my iPod. There are others, but I only listen to them intermittently. The following are ones are in heavy rotation. There are 52 here and 73 more in my iTunes podcast list, that are on my “B” list – -and not listed here. So let’s get started, shall we?

• Affirmation Nation with Bob Duka:  Fucking brilliant. But I recommend you save up a week at at time and listen to them all at once.  They are short and in small bites can be…confusing? Annoying? Anyway, when he starts listing his illnesses, be prepared to shoot coffee out your nose.
• Answer me this Anglophile that I am, I find this super charming and loads of fun.  Helen and Olly answer questions from drunk callers. Fun!
• Best of the Left:  Weekly highlights of the best Lefty podcasts out there, complied into one convenient package, three days a week.
• Black Op Radio: Your go-to podcast for JFK conspiracy theories. Scary.
• Bullseye: With Jesse Thorn. Formerly The Sound of Young America — but since Jesse turned 30, he decided he needed to change the name.  Well, F me.
• Comedy Bang Bang: This one is not everyone’s cup of fur. High ridiculousness, and occasional brilliance.
• Comedy Film nerds: Movie reviews by comedians Graham Elwood & Chris Mancini. Smart, funny guys talk about movies.
• The Corbet Report: Crazy out of Japan, inexplicably. More conspiracy theory funness.
• Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History: Now this is an awesome podcast.  History from an enthusiast’s perspective.  In-depth look at events in history, the whole story.  He did a four-parter on the Nazi invasion of Russia that will chill you to your core.  The horror of the Eastern Front has never been illustrated so clearly to me.
• Dave Emory: Nazi ties to American government. Puzzling evidence.
• The Dinner Party Download: Start with a joke, move to the cocktail, fun topics of conversation and food. What more can one want?
• Doug loves movies: Doug Benson has a great line up of comedians play “Build a Title” and “The Leonard Malton Game”.
• Escape pod:  The best of contemporary Sci-fi .
• Filmspotting: Talk about your favorite films and what is new in theaters this week.
• Freakonomics: Examine the insides of why we do what we do.
• Get It On: Old Loveline episodes with SuperFan Giovanni.  Before Adam turned into a Nouveau Riche asshole.
• Gnostic Media: The Trivium!  Crazy! Love it.
• Here’s the thing; Alec Baldwin interviews interesting people.
• Hillary’s Yoga Practice: Yoga practice and discussion.
• The History of Rome: A weekly podcast tracing the history of the Roman Empire, beginning with Aeneas’s arrival in Italy and ending (someday) with the exile of Romulus Augustulus, last Emperor of the Western Roman Empire.
• How did this get made?: Terrible or terribly great movies.
• How Was Your Week?:  This is like talking to your best girlfriend who reads People Magazine obsessively. I love this show so much. Julie is funny, smart, entertaining, talented, and catty.  LOVE.
• Kevin Pollak’s Chat Show: Straight up interviews of fascinating people, with some funny.
• Last Week on Earth: Ben Gleib interviews celebrities in light of what has happened in the last week.
• The Mental Illness Happy Hour: Paul Gil Martin – Weekly online podcast interviews with comedians, artists, friends, and the occasional doctor. All exploring mental illness, addiction and depression, especially among creatives.  You are not alone.
• MSNBC The Rachel Maddow Show: Sanity. Reality. Brilliance.  Listen every day to keep yourself sane.
• Mysteries Abound: Paul reads you news stories he finds on the internet that he finds “mysterious”.  Yes. It is a guy reading you stuff off the internet.
• The Memory Palace: This is a beautiful and thoughtful look at events in the past.  Usually seemingly small events that have a big impact on people.
• The Moth: Live storytelling.
• The Nerdist: Chris Hardwick and friends nerd out.  Sometimes they have guests, but I really like the ones where it is just them sitting around talking about Doctor Who or The Walking Dead.
• The New Yorker Fiction  Listen to scarily talented writers read a short fiction piece from the New Yorker archives, then discuss it with super smart people.  You have never felt so intellectually inadequate.
• NPR Fresh Air: Usually excellent, of course.
• NPR Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me: People make fun of the news.
• Npr Snap Judgement: Sort of This American Life but the host is more annoying.  But also grew up in a wierd cult, so that is interesting.
• Originz: Same guy that does “Mysteries Abound” reads other stuff he finds on the internet.  Yes, it really is just a guy reading stories to you he found on the internet.
• The Pod F. Tompkast: Bitlets, conversations and stream-of-consciousness monologery.
• Podcastle: Fantasy storytelling. You know, magic and dragons and shit.
• PRI: To the Best of our Knowlege: They call it “TTBOOK” for short, which I found confusing, because it is not about books.  In-depth journalism on significant topics.  Sort of a news magazine show.
• Randi Rhodes:Bits:  I love the Randi Rhodes show, she does rock-solid news analysis — but her demeanor with her callers can leave something to be desired. That said, this is not her show. These are teh comedy bits after her first commercial break, usually hilarious and spot on.
• Shorenstein Center:  The press, politics and public policy. Dry but hugely informative.
• Slate’s Culture Gabfest: One of the highlights of the week.  Three or four Slate columnist chat about what has been going on in the culture in the last week.  And the weekly endorsements, where they recommend movies, books, art shows, websites, what ever is interesting to them this week — is awesome.
• Slate’s Double X Gabfest: a lot like the Culture Gabfest, but slanted toward  things that impact or interest (smart) women.
• Slates’s Afterword: June Thomas interviews authors of non-fiction books.
• The Smartest Man in the World: This is my favorite.  I love Greg Proops, he is  witty, adroit, brilliant, and any other superlative you can think of.
• Starship Sofa: A Nebula-Award-winnng podcast, on all things Sci-Fi. Tony has the thickest Scottish accent you can imagine, and is super charming.  I usually only listen to the stories, which are top-notch.
• Stephanie Miller Right-Wing World : Stephie’s run-down of what hypocritical, asinine, asshattery the Republicans are up to this week.
• This American Life:  In-depth storytelling and journalism.
• Useless Information: charming and fun, as they put it on the site: “Stuff you never needed to know, but your life would be incomplete without.”
• Who Charted?: Howard Kremer and his trusty chart keeper Kulap Vilaysack are here with the charts of the week.
• WNCY’s RadioLab: Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, weaving stories and science into sound and music-rich documentaries. This one is good in head phones.
• WTF with Marc Maron:  Marc interviews comedians, but you end up learning more about him.  I am a huge fan.
• 99% Invisible: A podcast about design and how it impacts our world, often without us even knowing it.

So, there it is.  like I said, this is not all of them that are on my ipod, just the ones I listen to most.  Yeah, I know.